Life Was Unfair
by Irhaboggle
Summary: Contrary to what Carmilla and friends tried to accuse Elle of not knowing, this couldn't be further from the truth. There was, perhaps, no one else quite so acquainted with this lesson than Elle, herself, and accusing her of not knowing it was nothing short of insulting. (Elle-centric fic that just plods through her life under the old "life isn't fair" lens).


Elle knew that life was unfair. Even from birth, this had not been a new lesson for her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, her mother might not have died giving birth to her. But that was exactly what happened. Elle's mother had taken her last breath not more than five minutes after Elle had taken her first. But even though Elle did not miss her mother too much, the woman had died in her infancy after all, she could still see the devastating effects of that loss through what it did to her father. Sometimes, especially when Elle had been younger, she would catch him crying alone in the library, in a place where he thought that no one would ever see him weep or grieve, especially not his young daughter. She would catch him talking to a small picture of her that he kept on his desk when he thought no one was looking. He never realized that Elle was right there, peeping in through the library's keyhole, her heart breaking right alongside his that such a kind and gentle man should have to suffer such pain. She would cry with him sometimes, cursing the fates for being so unfair to one as loving and innocent as he.

Elle knew that life was unfair. All throughout her childhood, this had been a very salient lesson for her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might not have been tormented by strange visions and dreams that no one else had, or ever believed her for having. But that was exactly what happened. At the age of six, upon one normal summer night, Elle had received a strange visitor in the night, a beautiful woman that had come and curled up beside in her bed. That had not been the bad part of the dream, however. The bad part came later, when Elle suddenly felt a sharp and unexplainable pain in her neck, but had initially been unable to cry out for help because of a strangling sensation that seemed to block any air from entering or exiting her body. She did manage to survive the encounter, but after it had happened, because Elle's attacker had vanished so quickly and without any traces left behind, everyone in the schloss disbelieved Elle that the event had been anything more than a nightmare. Try as she did to argue otherwise, no one would listen to the poor child and they all insisted that it was just an overactive imagination and Elle could only despair, asking why life would be so unfair that even her own father laughed at what he perceived to be a childish folly.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Well into her teenage years, this had been a lesson that continued to shine on for her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might not have been as lonely as she was. But that was exactly what happened. Even though her schloss was always alive with activity, what with her father being retired on pension so that he was always within the schloss' walls and the schloss itself possessing countless servants to look after it, Elle still remained unfathomably lonely. It didn't matter that she had all the books, toys and treasures that she could ever want, they all meant nothing to her without someone to share them with. And again, even though she had her father and all of her servants, it still wasn't the same as having a real friend her age. So, despite her spoiled life, Elle could not help but continually pine for a real friend, bemoaning how unfair life was that she should be slap in the lap of luxury, yet unable to enjoy it due to one tiny thing missing from her life. A friend.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Even after receiving her long-coveted companion to complete her perfect little life, this had been a very obvious lesson to her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might not have had to suffer any more heartache after making her new friend. But that was exactly what happened. Although her new friend, Carmilla Karnstein, had been nothing but charming and enjoyable, misfortune still managed to wiggle its way into Elle's perfect little world. Elle had just found the truest of joys, feeling that her life was finally complete with a companion to share it with, when a series of unfortunate events began to attack the household. First was a strange plague that began sweeping the nearby village. It kept even the Sheridan schloss, isolated as it was, in a constant state of worry. Next was the fact that Elle's sleeping problems had come back. Every night, she suffered strange and eerie hallucinations and every morning, she woke up feeling drained, and this only got worse with every night. Third was Carmilla's own deteriorating health. The girl had always been rather frail and odd, but it seemed that the plague, or the stress relating to it, was taking a toll on her too, because her feverish delusions about herself and Elle grew more intense with every passing day and Elle cursed life that it should be so bent upon taking away her happiness.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Even when Carmilla had practically proposed to her, offering to take her to see the world and away from her schloss, that one lesson continued to be one that Elle kept on learning. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might have actually married Carmilla, or at least have accepted the offer to travel and move out together. They were supposed to go to New York first and then see the entire globe, together the whole time! Not wind up breaking each other's hearts and stealing each other's lives! But that was exactly what happened. The plague seemed to die down enough so that it was safe for Elle to go to the village and so, one morning, while Carmilla was still asleep, she did so. While in the village, she met a strange woman claiming that Carmilla was a vampire. Although Elle initially dismissed the idea as folly and feverish, when the woman was able to provide more and more evidence, Elle found herself genuinely worried and she ran home at once, already planning to see if this was true. Sadly, it was. After exposing Carmilla to a bit of blood and seeing her volatile reaction, Elle knew at once that the village woman had been totally right. Elle felt a piece of herself die, then, not just because of what a horrific discovery this was, but because of the implications of it all. What if Carmilla had never loved her at all, seeing Elle only as another meal? And what if the whole proposal had only been a trick to get Elle out of the house so it would be easier to kill her and then escape? Elle imagined that Carmilla eating her alive would've hurt less than coming to this understanding that Carmilla had only ever been using her from the start.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Even after coming know the truth about Carmilla and going instead to travel with the village woman who had been far more honest with her than Carmilla ever had, this lesson continued to be very cruel and painfully clear. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, Elle might not have had to suffer any more heartache after leaving the toxic Carmilla behind. But that was exactly what happened. Try as she may, Elle couldn't get over Carmilla. She tried reassuring herself that she had done the right thing in sending the vampire away, but that nagging feeling that she had just thrown away the biggest opportunity in her life refused to let her go and regret began to consume her life. Then, when the village woman betrayed her as well, Elle was left totally alone, nothing but her and her regrets, and she could only bitter curse life for being so unfair to her that this should've been her fate. All she had ever wanted was to be loved. Why was that so much to ask? Why did every person that Elle hung out with or trust or love have to turn on her and attempt to kill her? But the poor girl would never get those answers, for while Carmilla's betrayal had merely been the omission of truth, this woman's had been a direct attempt on her life. Her offer to take Elle traveling instead of Carmilla had only been a trick to get Elle out of the house so it would be easier to kill her and then escape, and it worked perfectly.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Even after losing her life, this lesson still followed her around. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might not have had to suffer any more after dying. But that was exactly what happened. Even death refused to show any kindness or mercy to Elle and, somehow, even after being murdered, the young woman woke up. But she didn't even just wake up in some back alleyway or forest, or even in an afterlife she had expected to wake up in. Instead, she'd woke up in her own schloss, or rather, a shadowy reflection of it. But if anything, that made it all the worse. First, it had been torture enough to wake up in her bed and think it had all only been a nightmare only to realize that it wasn't. But then it had grown worse because, secondly, she soon came to realize that while this schloss was alive with activity, it was all only comprised of memories. Everyone else in the schloss, aside from Elle, was no more than a hallucination, meaning the girl was stuck totally alone. Sure, she was surrounded by people, but none of them could interact with her. She was totally alone, unable to reach out to the people who were right in front of her. Thirdly, this meant that she had literally been forced in her worst nightmare: to be stuck forever in her confined schloss and then to be entirely alone while imprisoned. It was her two greatest fears combined and multiplied forever. Fourthly, if she was alone here, it meant everyone else was still on the outside and they would continue to live on without her and she would never get to see any of her loved ones again or know what their reaction had been after her disappearance. But fifthly, and perhaps worst of all, as the time passed, the memories of the schloss began to change and fade until the only ones left were ones with Carmilla in them. Ironically, the one person in the schloss that Elle wished would go away was the only one that stayed. Even her father's memory faded out eventually, but Carmilla remained, a burning reminder of Elle's biggest mistake, and nothing would get the vampire to go, even though Elle wanted nothing more than to be free of her, and this house of horror. And it was such a cruel irony to think that, in life, Elle wanted nothing more than to be alone with Carmilla, but now that she had it, she would've done anything to give it up.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Even after managing to somehow escape her Hell dimension, albeit temporarily, this still continued to be a burning lesson for her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might've been able to use her occasional freedom from the Hell dimension to go somewhere better, or see something other than her ex living the life she never had. But that was exactly what happened. Against all odds, Elle had figured out a way to occasionally leave her Hell. In the form of a dream, Elle could travel into the minds of those on the outside world, but even that bore no blessings, for the only people whose minds she could enter were those who had been marked to suffer the same fate that she had. This meant, in the rare moment that Elle was let out of prison, she was still stuck knowing that another girl was about to join her in a nightmarish eternity and, since dreams usually happened at night, that meant Carmilla was highly active and Elle was forced to watch on the sidelines as the vampire seduced victim after victim after victim, sending each of them down the same pit Elle, herself, had died in back in 1872. And Elle was totally helpless to stop it! She could only try to warn the girls away from the vampire, but it never, ever, ever worked. Not once. And for the sake of those girls and Elle's own slipping sanity, Elle cursed life for being so unfair that Carmilla could continue her evil existence freely while all these young girls were played like pawns right into the hands of death with no one to save them.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Though Carmilla had changed her ways and saved the world from an apocalypse, this was still an ever-present lesson for her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, Carmilla might've done more than repent. She might've been punished properly for the rest of her crimes and wouldn't, instead, have been allowed to waltz away totally free, and with a new girlfriend to boot! But that was exactly what happened. Now, Elle wouldn't deny that Carmilla had done quite a bit of good for the world, but one measly year was still nowhere near enough to pay back for the centuries she'd been performing wicked and deceitful deeds. Especially since all of those victims were still very much unsaved. Sure, Carmilla had saved the land of the living, but Elle and the other innocent victims were still very much in Hell and it didn't look like Carmilla was going to come help them out any time soon, if ever. But to Elle, the most unfair thing of all was that she had to watch all of it happen. She had to watch all of Carmilla's happiness unfold like a flower in the spring while she remained a deadened weed trapped in an eternal winter, forgotten.

Elle knew that life was unfair. Despite the fact that Elle had successfully lured Carmilla back to her schloss and managed to get the vampire-turned-human to go back to being a vampire so that Elle could have her life essence, the lesson still refused to let Elle win. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, Elle would not have lost her second chance at life gotten her life. But that was exactly what happened. Even after crafting an insanely complicated plot and successfully pulling it off, life decided to remind Elle yet again how unfair it was by having the girl lose at the very end of the line and to one very simple flaw: her own sense of pride. She'd been so wrapped up in vengeance against Carmilla that one of Carmilla's allies managed to sneak-attack Elle and immobilize her, freeing Carmilla. So Elle had come all this way after all this time only to lose the game due to some stupid secondary character. It wasn't just unfair, it was humiliating! And then Carmilla and friends had the audacity to lecture Elle about how unfair she'd been to everyone, including the other girls trapped within the Hell dimension. They all had the gall to gang up on her, treat her like a complete monster, and insist that she was the evil one, the unjust one, the cruel one, the unfair one. As if life wasn't already unfair by default! But no, even though everyone loved to say that life was unfair, the moment someone acted unfairly, the unfairness was suddenly their fault instead of a natural byproduct of life. And what's more, this was the ultimate hypocrisy. Carmilla had no right to tell Elle about how unfair Elle was being. But it happened anyway, because life was just that unfair.

Elle knew that life was unfair. While Carmilla used her life essence to help everyone move on, this had been a very painful and obvious lesson for her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, she might not have died feeling so unfulfilled even though Carmilla had since offered up her life to everyone else trapped in the schloss. But that was exactly what happened. Once Carmilla finished the ritual, every ghost in the Hell dimension was sent immediately to the real, final afterlife while the Hell dimension popped out of existence, its last source of energy depleted with Carmilla's sacrifice. But despite such a victory, Elle still died bitter and unanswered. She might've been moving out of the Hell dimension once and for all, but it hadn't been on her own terms, it had been on Carmilla's. Even after all this time, Elle still had no control over her own fate and even a moment of what should've been triumph became a moment of defeat for her. But that was just life, for you. And as Elle knew all too well, life wasn't fair. Even when winning, she still lost, and this was a lesson never forgotten by her. After all, if life hadn't been unfair, Elle might've been able to move on by her own terms, and with proper closure, not by someone else's choice. But that was exactly what happened. But then again, Elle had always known that life was unfair.

 **AN: Just a ramble-fic about Elle's life through the lens of "life isn't fair", where she knows full well how terrible life can be. It's mostly just because I wanted to write some Elle Angst and imagine how she, of all people, would know about the concept of injustice and unfairness. And I wanted to chronicle these instances throughout her whole life, every example of unfairness being some integral part of her storyline. Sorry it's so long and possibly boring (given that there's no real dialogue or action), but I still hope everyone enjoyed the layout and concept, even if the delivery is a bit subpar.**


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